Category: Internet

hardware, Internet, Security, Software, technology

Ubiquiti’s USG router steps up with dual wan support!

| be3n

I was very excited to discover this feature listed in my Unifi controller today.  You can now repurpose the VOIP port to act as a WAN2.  The ironic part is that i don’t believe the VOIP port serves any actual VOIP function as of yet.  I’ve been recommending these USG routers since I learned of their existence. Unfortunately a lot of my clients want dual WAN and until now, the Unifi Security Gateway fell short.  No longer, Ubiquiti has a really great product line with the Unifi.  I am continuously discovering great new innovation with the latest update to their software, firmware, or cloud platform.  I have been waiting for this!

Unifi WAN2 option

hardware, Internet, Science, Security, Software, technology, Travel

Defcon 2016 photos and videos

| be3n

Close ups of my much coveted badge.  Some hardware and base stations of the wifi village.  Both Information Society and Berlin played on Saturday night!  Shot a video of an amazing demo from the Car Hacking Village.  A car modified to play games instead of driving.  Also, the best of my flight home.  Some great pictures of Hoover dam and some of the solar farms and mesas as we few home.

defcon 2016 badge closedefcon 2016 badge chipdefcon 2016 wifi villagedefcon 2016 wifi village 2 
Continue reading “Defcon 2016 photos and videos” →

Culture, Internet, movies, Software, technology

Star Wars and code!

| be3n

Vader MatrixWith my work queue nearly completed, i have decided this morning to sit down and start a few small projects of my own.  I’ve got three screens up; client side, server side and Star Wars.  I am ready to get it done. Starting with the original version of the the original  A New Hope.  This will keep the creativity flowing while not distracting too much from the task at hand.  I’ll be posting on the other side assuming i produce something worth sharing. I hope you are making the best of your Friday. #starwarsandcode

Update:
Got some great stuff done, but nothing ready to show off yet.

hardware, Internet, Software, technology

Finally upgraded firmware of a critical piece of my network!

| be3n

network infrastructure For years now I have been terrified of one particular network device. This high end device requires a service contract from it’s manufacturer to be eligible for software upgrades and as such had been neglected for some time. I couldn’t use it the way I wanted or hardly at all for fear that it would be compromised via the Heartbleed vulnerability. Forced to relegate this amazing appliance to be firewalled far from the prying packets of the Internet at large.

Finally, with some licensing help from a friend, it’s firmware is finally current! It can once again take it’s place as the core of my network without the fear of being instantly owned. Thank you Adam once again for all your help.  Let this be a lesson to hardware venders.  Don’t force people to pay service contracts just for security upgrades.  Your bugs, your job to fix.

Internet, technology, Web

Something is getting better!

| be3n

https lock iconMy blog is now distributed with Amazon’s Cloudfront CDN using powerful encryption and signed by a proper CA certificate.  See the shiny green lock?  Like a grown-up adult website.  After only 8.5 years.  Congratulations!  Thank you StartSSL!

Update:  you may have noticed that the transition has been a bit bumpy.  Still getting the hang of things and this website needs a lot of work (possibly a complete resurfacing).  I am sorry about the downtime and all the SSL errors, I am working on it.  Thanks Eric, I hope I didn’t step on your birthday plans kidnapping your brain. 

Internet, technology, Web

Dreamhost you made a fool of me.

| be3n

Dreamhost Logo

I recommended Dreamhost highly for many years.  When Mac Enthusiasts asked me where they should host their email, I said Dreamhost without a pause.  We moved the MX record over the weekend from Media Temple to Dreamhost and waited as the DNS records propagated throughout the internet.  Monday morning I left everyone’s new credentials on a note so they could get to work.  Immediately, we noticed a problem.  The mail server was unresponsive.  By noon, I had a good understanding of the problem and I submitted a support request.  Dreamhost did not respond until after 9pm and this was all they said.

I’m terribly sorry for the issues with the mail service responding slowly today. It looks like there was an issue with our POP/IMAP machines causing the slowness with the accessing of your mailbox earlier today.  Our Admins were able to look into this matter and get the issue resolved.  This was a temporary issue with the mail load spiking, resulting in the slowness, but that’s all resolved now.

Oh good one might think.  Problem reported, problem solved.  Not so.  Of course now that buisness was done, I couldn’t verify their claim. Again I waited to see if their claim was true.  It was not.  It the light of Tuesday morning macenthusiasts.com email was completely unusable from the office.  So once again, I carefully composed my support request.  They quickly responded with additional questions, I immediately answered.  They wanted the IP of the office and a traceroute to their mail server.  No response from Dreamhost until 1am.  This is what they said:

This should be resolved with the load balancing issues resolved. I just checked multiple email addresses from your domain, and was able to connect to them on multiple ports. I also checked and found that your office IP address is not currently banned. I am sorry it took so long to get back to you, your tickets were placed in my queue when I was out of
the office. Please let us know if the issues are continuing in the office, so we can continue to look at the office, and troubleshoot there.

Continue reading “Dreamhost you made a fool of me.” →